“As one of the top oral biology departments in the country, students interact with some of the best in fundamental oral science."

Michael Russell
Professor, Oral Biology

Why Choose Oral Biology at UB ?

The Department of Oral Biology provides state-of-the-art research training in scientific methodology and theory, preparing students to become part of leading oral health research faculties or oral health research institutions.

The Focus

Creation, dissemination, and application of knowledge in oral and craniofacial health science.

The department has a PhD program in Oral Biology, a strong postdoctoral training program, and is associated with both the PhD Program in Biomedical Sciences (PPBS) run by the School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, and the MS in Oral Sciences program run by the School of Dental Medicine. Learn More >>

Support

A NIH T-32 Institutional Training Grant is currently available for domestic PhD students and postdoctoral fellows. Support for non-domestic students is also available. Learn More >>

Research Funding

The department has an extremely impressive history of obtaining research funding, including both department-wide NIH training grants and individual faculty research awards. The department’s particular success in obtaining NIH Training Grants reflects its very strong national reputation for both research quality and student mentoring. In turn, these grants provide the funding required to maintain a large and robust training program.

Results

Graduates of our PhD and postdoctoral training programs are successful researchers, teachers, and administrators in dental schools and research institutions throughout the U.S., and in many foreign countries.

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Mentoring

Every project in a mentorship program has an emphasis on publishing—the “currency” of science—with a view toward high-impact journals

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Outnumbered

It has been determined that the human body contains more bacteria than cells of its own.

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Bone Loss

The bone loss in periodontal disease is due almost entirely to the exaggerated host immune response elicited to fight oral bacteria.

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Oral and Systemic Disease

Oral biology research at UB has provided provocative evidence that oral diseases such as periodontal disease can contribute to the initiation or progression of such systemic diseases as myocardial infarction, stroke, diabetes mellitus, and pneumonia.

ALUMNI VIEW >

Jenny Sun (’08)

Dr. Edgerton is trying to encourage all of us to think for ourselves and lead us to the correct way. We talk daily. I like this department a lot. The students, the faculty—everybody knows everybody else. We always talk together, what is going on with your research. It’s kind of a big family, and the faculty is very easygoing.

ALUMNI VIEW >

Calogero Dolce (’96)

The Oral Biology program met all my needs. They were very, very accommodating. There was a diversity of people there. Everything that you needed was there. If you had a problem, you could always go to another faculty member to get your question resolved. There was a lot of different expertise.

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Lawrence Tabak (’81)

We all learned from each other—students, postdocs and faculty alike. Our journal clubs were pretty intense. My classmates went on to very distinguished academic/research careers. We were taught to be intellectually rigorous and unafraid to try new things.

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Keith Kirkwood (’97)

A lot of my training and views on clinical periodontics especially are based on my experiences in Oral Biology in Buffalo. The program allowed me to seek training outside the department because I wanted different expertise.